“I’d run the risk of losing everything/Sell all my things, become nomadic,” Clairo sings on “Nomad,” the opening track of her third studio album, Charm. The singer-songwriter has been something of a musical nomad since the start of her career. From the synthy bedroom pop of 2018’s Diary 001 to the spacious folk-pop of 2021’s Sling, every step Clairo has taken as an artist has felt like a deliberate pivot. With Charm, though, the long game of Clairo’s creative arc comes into greater focus.
Lively like 2019’s Immunity and luscious like Sling, the often jazzy, R&B-infused Charm highlights the soulfulness of Clairo’s voice. On “Add Up My Love,” for example, her vocals slide with ease over the track’s skittering backbeats, while the supple vocal layering on “Nomad” melds seamlessly into with the song’s flute and Wurlitzer.
Alongside Clairo’s innate knack for melody, the album’s instrumentation—courtesy of an array of session musicians, including members of Brooklyn funk-soul outfit Menahan Street Band—is its secret weapon. Layered beneath Marco Benevento’s luxurious, sweeping keyboards, Nick Movshon’s bass on “Terrapin” finds pockets in the track’s sparse, jazzy beat to groove along to. Toward the end of the track, the instruments coalesce into choppy, syncopated hits that sound like samples while remaining faithful to Clairo’s early history of singing over lo-fi beats.
The songs on Charm radiate warmth and, yes, charm. On the intro of “Juna,” Leon Michels’s playfully unpredictable bassline is paired with a mouth trumpet solo by Clairo that cleverly gives way to an actual trumpet. “You make me wanna go buy a new dress,” the singer coyly admits on the track, “You make me wanna slip off a new dress.” And like “Juna,” “Sexy to Someone” finds Clairo wanting to be wanted: “Sexy to someone is all I really want.”
The way Clairo’s voice glides over Charm’s grooves is effortless, especially compared to the virtuosic performances around her. And that effortlessness isn’t just the result of the creative alignment of the myriad musicians involved, but the clear vision of the artist at the helm.
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